With startling swiftness and violence, an armed cadre seizes state control. Fortunately a coup d'état can't happen here. Or can it? This suspense classic, based on a 1962 novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II and adapted for the screen by Rod Serling, follows two very different men at odds with one another—a popular general and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman (Burt Lancaster) and an unpopular president (Fredric March) with a pacifist agenda. A vigilant colonel (Kirk Douglas) uncovers the scheme. But are seven days enough to derail a takeover? Winner of the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor (Edmond O'Brien, who was also nominated for an Oscar for his role as one of the president's inner circle), the New York Times called this 1964 film "a totally fresh and bold experience, as loaded as a Hitchcock mystery."